The present invention relates generally to the fields of data mining, real-time analytics and internet (see definition, below, in Definitions sub-section of the Detailed Description section) social media interactions.
Known techniques for processing data generated and/or communicated over the internet include the following: (i) viral phenomena “predictions” (performed after the fact based on historic data); (ii) rapid response to events in marketing and advertising; (iii) customer specific “micro trend” analysis; (iv) content pre-fetching; (v) influence analysis; (vi) belief propagation; (vii) sentiment mining; (viii) user behavior analysis; (ix) information reach; and (x) fraud detection. Techniques (i) to (x) will herein collectively be referred to as “Internet Data Analysis Techniques” (IDAT).
On a popular microblogging site, thousands of new microblogging posts, every minute, talk about various kinds of “substantive content” (see definition of “substantive content” in Definitions sub-section of the Detailed description section). Along with microblog posts (which are generally limited to a set number of characters in length—for example, a 140 character limit), these microblog posts often contain an explicit, unambiguous name or “identifier” of the substantive content, at least when the substantive content is in the form of “substantive online content” (see definition of “substantive online content,” below, in the Definitions sub-section of the Detailed Description section). For example, in the case of microblog posts about videos available on a popular video sharing site, many of the related microblog posts will typically include the uniform resource locator (URL) of the video to which the microblog post relates. The text, image and/or other content of the microblog entry typically provides some indication of the type and identity of substantive content. More specifically, substantive online content is often referenced by the explicit identifier (for example, URL of a video at a video sharing site). An example of the foregoing type of microblogging post is as follows “Newborn Baby Kittens is a cute video on www.vidsharesite.com/aaabbbccc!!” In this example microblog post, the posting user mentions a video URL (that is, the identifier) of a particular video available online (that is, the substantive online content).
The concept of “popular video” versus “viral video,” as it is conventionally understood will now be discussed. The viral video tends to peak more sharply and wane more rapidly that the popular video. On the other hand, popular music video exhibits a steady and regular growth pattern after a peak viewing period. Some conventionally recognized factors contributing to virality of viral videos are as follows: (i) tastemakers; (ii) creative participating community; and/or (iii) unexpectedness.